The present invention is directed to the field of diagnosis and resolution of problems on Voice, Data, Voice over Data and VoIP (Voice over IP) Communications Networks. The presently available test equipment is manufactured by a variety of different companies. All of the presently available devices and methods suffer from the deficiencies explained below.
The presently available testing methods and equipment for such communications networks generally require a technician or engineer to manually collect data from the test equipment, and then manually analyze the data for any problems. The technician or engineer then is required to develop a remedial plan to solve the problem with the network. This process is slow, expensive, and may require several iterations by the technician or engineer prior to the actual problem being solved. In addition, since the technician or engineer must manually collect the data and then enter the data into a computer for analysis, there are many opportunities for error introduced. Finally, due to the manual nature of these methods, its is difficult to reliably reproduce the exact test parameters.
An additional difficulty that has been encountered with attempting to automate these testing procedures is the great variability of the commercially available communications network test equipment. Due to the diverse nature of the equipment, any software that interfaces with the equipment must be capable of communicating with and controlling all of the varied test equipment in order to have real practical value and application.
The object of the present invention is to solve the problems with the presently available test equipment and procedures by providing a computerized software tool to automate the entire diagnostic process from the control of the test equipment to the production of a report of problems and suggested remedies. Another object of the present invention is to provide a software tool that can communicate with the diverse test equipment of the different manufacturers so that the tool can be universally applied. The present invention accomplishes these objectives by providing software that will analyze the data received from the test equipment, then transmit the data to a data base that will analyze the data based on experience with such networks and then generate a report based on an n-dimensional matrix approach.
The present invention is directed to a processing system for analyzing problems with communications networks comprising test equipment for the communications networks selected from a plurality of available test equipment and a computer comprising interface software that is capable of communicating with and controlling the plurality of available test equipment through the transmission of electronic signals to the test equipment, a database comprising problems with communications networks and suggested remedies for the problems, means for analyzing data generated by the test equipment to determine problems with the communications networks and comparing those problems to the database to determine suggested remedies for the problems, and means for generating a report for the communications network to be diagnosed. In addition, the present invention is also directed to a computerized method for testing communications networks comprising sending electronic signals from interface software installed on a computer to conventional test equipment for communications networks and thereby causing the test equipment to perform a plurality of tests on the communications network, sending output data generated from the test equipment as a result of the tests performed on the communications network through the interface software to the computer, processing the output data in the computer to identify problems with the communications network using an n-dimensional matrix approach, comparing any problems with the communications network to a data base of problems with communications networks installed on the computer, generating causes and suggested remedies for the problems from the database, and printing a report of the results of the tests conducted on the communications network including the cause and suggested remedy of the problem.